FORMAT: DVD (REWATCH)
ORIGINAL REVIEW:
(As posted on August 17th, 2007)
The Siamese Hilton twins Daisy and Violet from Freaks return to the screen nearly 20 years later in this film loosely based on their own lives. Their real-life story was much more dramatic than this fluff, but Freaks fans will want to check this, their only other film appearance, out.
They star as “The Hamilton Sisters”, Dorothy and Vivian who are on trial for murder! They’re questioned by the prosecutor and tell their life story in flashbacks. They once starred in a vaudeville show where their manager schemed to have Dorothy married to a sharpshooter for publicity. Dorothy actually falls in love with him though and predictably gets her heart broken by the no-good louse. In the end though, it’s Vivian who pulls the trigger! The film leaves us with the question should Dorothy also be punished for Vivian’s crime since they’re Siamese twins?
The film’s best scene is a fantasy sequence in which Dorothy imagines that she becomes separated from Vivian and gets to frolic around with her new love. The effects in this scene are pretty low-grade (Vivian is either hidden behind a tree or a sheet and Dorothy’s obvious stand in is only photographed from far away), but the scene remains oddly effective. There’s as an odd but interesting scene where the sisters go to a helpful blind preacher for guidance, and he talks a lot of gobbledygook about “God’s mysterious ways.” The Hilton sisters are pretty good and do several numbers, but other acts (plate jugglers, accordionists, bicyclists, etc.) take up too much time though. It’s not as exploitative as you might expect, but it suffers from comparison to Freaks. The Hiltons died penniless fifteen years later.
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